Fossil Energy

Since the late 1970s, the Fossil Energy program has developed and transferred Sandia technologies to assist the natural gas and oil industry, especially U.S. independent producers. Our goal is to maintain a secure, economic supply of the nation’s natural gas and crude oil. To this end, we develop improved recovery and processing technology using our expertise in geoscience, advanced diagnostics and imaging, drilling technology, materials and process science, advanced storage systems, and combustion science.

Program influences on the domestic oil and gas industry include:

Reduced well failure rate at Belridge, CA, oil field from 10 percent to 5 percent per year, resulting in an annual savings to operators of $25 to $50 million in lost production.

Automatic Casing Swab yielded $2 million in federal tax revenue and $10 million in reserves to a West Virginia operator.

Salvo seismic imaging algorithm development wins 1999 R&D 100 Award.

Thrust Areas

The program capitalizes on Sandia’s unique experience with research and development in the following Thrust Areas:

Diagnostics-While-Drilling will provide real-time, high-speed data downhole drilling conditions. By integrating this data with surface measurements, the driller will be able to select actions that prevent or mitigate drilling problems. Eventually the control loop will also be able to send commands to active components downhole.

Well Construction

Develop and lead Department of Energy’s program in Diagnostics While Drilling

Take and maintain the national laboratory lead in developing faster, deeper, cheaper, and safer drilling technology

Address the need for the expansion of natural gas needs for the first half of the 21st century

Reservoir Evaluation & Production

Lead the development of coupled geophysical, geochemical, geomechanical, and hydrogeological approaches to understand and simulate reservoirs and advanced recovery

Connect

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.